groff 1.17.2 on FreeBSD 3.4 i386 machine

[Charlie Sorsby]

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GROFF VERSION:
1.17.2

MACHINE:
i386

OS:
FreeBSD 3.4

COMPILER:
2.7.2.3

INPUT FILES:
none

COMMAND LINE:
man groff
man grohtml
man nroff
etc.

DESCRIPTION OF INCORRECT BEHAVIOUR:
After testing the groff build, I installed it in the default
/usr/local/...  I then renamed the old version (in /usr/bin) to
<filename>.old -- e.g. "sudo mv /usr/bin/groff /usr/bin/groff.old"
since /usr/bin is earlier in my path than /usr/local/bin.  I then
began renaming the old man pages in /usr/share/man so that man
would (or so I thought) yield the new man pages.

Since doing that, I have a problem with man.  Here's an example:

PC% whereis -m nroff
nroff: /usr/share/man/man1/nroff.1.gz
PC% ls /usr/local/man/man1/nroff.1*
/usr/local/man/man1/nroff.1
PC% sudo mv /usr/share/man/man1/nroff.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/nroff.1.gz.old
Password:
PC% man nroff
Formatting page, please wait.../usr/bin/tbl: not found
/usr/bin/groff: not found
Done.
PC% 

But that behaviour only occurs the first time.  After that, the man
command returns nothing:

PC% man nroff
PC% 

PC% sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/tbl /usr/bin
Password:
PC% man nroff
PC%
PC% man -M /usr/local/man nroff
Formatting page, please wait.../usr/bin/groff: not found
Done.
PC% sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/groff /usr/bin
Password:
PC% man nroff
PC% man -M /usr/local/man nroff
PC% 

I tried running catman and, first, it complained that it couldn't
find nroff.  After "sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/nroff /usr/bin" it
then complained "locale: not found" and I can't find that either.

Any man pages that had already been preformated are OK, of course.

(I chose man4 for the following because there are only four files
in that directory.)

Also, catman is complaining that I shouldn't run that it as root:
PC% sudo catman -f /usr/local/man/man4
Don't start this program as root, use:
echo /usr/bin/catman -f /usr/local/man/man4 | nice -5 su -m man
locale: not found
locale: not found
locale: not found
locale: not found

But trying the suggested approach yields:
PC% echo /usr/bin/catman -f /usr/local/man/man4 | nice -5 su -m man
Password:
Sorry

whether I use root's password or my own.

I don't remember it ever complaining about being run as root
before, much suggesting an alternative.



SUGGESTED FIX [optional]:

Any advice will be sincerely appreciated.  I use *roff quite a lot
and man even more.